An Easy Method to include a PDF on Your Website

One of the questions I’m often asked by my clients is the format they should employ to upload documents to their site. Most of the time the documents were made using Microsoft Word, but not all people have this software. This is why, as well as other reasons ( file size and editable files and editable, and so on. ) It is likely that you will not want to include the documents you provide to customers in the form of an Word document. The preferred format I recommend is PDF.

The Adobe Format PDF which is a shortened form of Portable Document Format, is an excellent way to include documents to a site. This is especially the case if the documents are required to be printed or if they are extremely complex, making it difficult to lay the information on the layout of a website. One example is medical forms that must be filled out prior to a patient’s first appointment in the office.

The ability for a patient to go to the site for the download of and printing the template prior to their appointment is more effective than having the office send the physical copy of the form the patient. Using the PDF form that can be printed and completed with a pen is often better than collecting the information through a form on the internet due to the potential delicate nature of data being taken (and the strict security standards your website would be required to comply with when collecting the data).

This medical form is but one of the reasons to use the PDF format. Other examples I’ve observed include:

• Minutes of the meeting of the board members in detail in which you wish to make it accessible to the public, but don’t wish to make it easily edited.
• Larger documents, such as employee handbooksthat have to be easily printable (and not editable in any way).
• Display printed work in the portfolio of a designer.x

The bottom line is that adding PDF files to a site is extremely simple to add. Let’s examine how simple it is to incorporate the PDF file on your website.

Step 1 – You’ll Need A PDF

The initial step in the process is to create the PDF. While you can buy an advanced version of Adobe Acrobat to create these documents, you can make the same process using other programs, including Microsoft Word, by using the “Print” functionality and selecting PDF as your choice.

If it isn’t accessible to you There are plenty of PDF converters that are free that are available online, including the PDF Converter, Online2PDF, CutePDF, and numerous others. Although I do own the full version of Acrobat however, I’ve utilized BullzipPDF for times to make PDF documents when required on other systems.

If you’ve got the PDF files prepared and you’re ready, you can proceed to another step.

2. Upload your PDF

It is necessary to upload the PDF file to your website hosting environment. Although some websites that utilize a CMS might have this capability integrated but in other cases, you’ll utilize the standard FTP software to upload the PDF files to your website’s directories.

If you’re storing a large number of PDF files, you should place them into a different folder in a separate folder from those HTML files. The addition of these PDFs to an existing folder that has the name “documents” is a pretty typical procedure. This makes it simpler for future updates as well as to discover where these files are (it’s similar to the graphics on your site are in a folder titled “images”, etc. ).

Step 3. Link to your PDF

Now that you have your PDF (or PDFs) installed it is now time to connect to them. You can hyperlink to your PDF files just like you would any other file . Simply include an anchor tag in the image or text you’d like to link to and add the path to the file. For instance, your link could look something like this:

Additional Tips:

1. In the past, a lot of websites would hyperlink on to Acrobat Reader web site to assist people who did not have the program to download it in order to see your PDF file. In reality, modern web browsers display PDF files in-line. This means they don’t automatically download documents to the computer of the user and instead display the documents directly within the browser. Due to this, it’s not necessary nowadays to provide a hyperlink that downloads the software, however should you decide to do this you should definitely consider it (it could make your website look dated however)
2. Make use of Soda PDF for documents you do not want others to be able modify by creating safe PDFs. Make sure that, if someone is using an advanced version of the software they will be able to make changes unless you secure the document from permitting the modifications.